The War Z – Developer Harasses Streamer For Hacker Names

27Dec

The War Z continues to struggle with public relations after a developer was caught “harassing” a popular streamer over the names of possible hackers inside his clan. If you’ve been keeping up with the negative press surrounding The War Z you’re probably already aware of the allegations of copyright theft and the recent removal from Steam but the negative press continues with this latest incident.

The streamer, Artemisknives, was live streaming a clan fight on The War Z after collecting a dozen or so of his members on US Server 195. One of the developers, RussianKaliber, was also in the fight and he approached Artemis with questions regarding previous streams. During his previous streams Artemis admitted to knowingly having hackers in his clan, even to the point of asking them to defend his clan against other hackers.

The developer then proceeded to pressure the streamer for the names of his clan members that he suspects are hacking. Artemis actually had a spreadsheet created prior to the stream where he recorded the names of suspected hackers in his clan and he handed them over to RussianKaliber without any hesitation.

The War Z forums have since exploded with players calling yet more unprofessional behavior on behalf of the developers. If you’ve read my previous posts on the game you’re probably aware that I don’t pull any punches and I’m quick to point out the mistakes that have been made by the development team but this is a severe case of over reacting. A developer was present when a player fully acknowledged being aware of hackers in his group, what was RussianKaliber meant to do? Ignore it? By contacting the streamer live during the stream he actually reinforced the fact that the developers do care and he was one of the only developers active on the forums over the holiday period.

You can view the stream here. Skip forward to 4:47:50 if you want to hear the discussion between Artemis and the developer. Personally I felt both dealt with the situation rather well. I don’t fully agree with the threatening words RussianKaliber used as Artemis was entirely open on every question and even supplied the names of the hackers. Rather than highlighting more issues with development, I actually feel this has highlighted the horrid community that infests The War Z official forums.